WWUTT 1315 Q&A Blessing Your Pastor, Christian Liberty, Causing Division, Ravi Zacharias Scandal, Christians Voting Biden

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How can you be a blessing to your pastor and therefore your church? Does calling out false teachers cause division?

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What are we to make of Ravi Zacharias' ministry? And can a Christian really vote for Joe Biden? The answers when we

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Understand the Text. Many of the

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Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty.

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Visit our website at www .utt .com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

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Thank you, Becky, who is not on the program with me this week. And I'm even late in getting this posted.

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I am tired. We are getting things together and packed and moved.

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We're getting the house painted and all this other kind of stuff. And so we don't have much energy to spare in our preparation to move to Lindale, Texas, which is now less than two weeks away, that move.

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And so your prayers for us appreciated your contributions and helping us with that move and some of those expenses like painting rooms.

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By the way, I mentioned this last week that if you wanted to help out and donate in some way to help us with our expenses, you can donate through PayPal to our email address when we understand the text at gmail .com.

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And we did get a few donations last week. Let me tell you how your donation helped. We had some volunteers at our house on Saturday to help us paint the outside.

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We've got more painting we're going to do tomorrow outside and inside. But I had to feed all of those volunteers.

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And so the donations that you sent in helped me to pay for pizza. So thank you. Thank you for feeding my volunteers as they're helping us get packed up and moved.

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You know, it is difficult for me even right now to do the podcast. I don't know if you've thought of the last several episodes as being like, you know,

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Gabe just doesn't seem like his usual self. I don't think I come across that way, but I'm tired when

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I sit down and I hit record and I've got my Bible open. My brain is fried and I've pretty much given everything of myself in the day to handling contracts and and and talking with people about coming and doing work on the house or getting some last minute things finished, not just here at the house, but even at the church.

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And so by the time I sit down and I'm ready to do a 20 minute devotional, I don't have much left. Well, that prompted a conversation that Becky and I had before I sat down here and I wanted to pass on to you, even though she's not sitting with me here,

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I wanted to share with you a way that that you can be a benefit to your pastor or or how this will be a benefit to you in your relationship with your pastor.

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Now, what I'm going to share with you here is not me complaining about my church. I have a unique situation that I'm in right now in that I'm moving.

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So that's the reason why I'm so tired. It's not because I'm having to do all of this stuff myself.

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It's because there's just a lot of work to do. And our church has stepped up tremendously. Even a member of our church went ahead and took a trailer down for us.

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So we have stuff in Lindale waiting for us to get there. A member of my congregation did that for us.

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And we've had folks from our church come and help pack boxes and paint the house and stuff like that. So we're getting tremendous help.

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But because of all the work that we have to do, I'm tired and it's hindering me from teaching like I usually do.

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First Thessalonians chapter five, beginning in verse 12, says this. We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the

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Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work.

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Be at peace among yourselves. I believe it was last week I also read to you from Hebrews 13, 17, obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account.

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Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

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So here's what I want to pass on to you. The more work that your pastor has to do that takes him away from teaching, which is supposed to be his primary role as pastor of the church.

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The more that he has to do that takes him away from teaching, the less benefit that is to you and to the other members of the congregation.

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It is essential that a church focus on the teaching of the word of God. There are certainly other things that a church can be doing with missions, evangelism, showing love and kindness, doing charity work and stuff like that.

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Yes, a church can do all of those things, but it all flows out of a teaching of the gospel. If the teaching isn't there, then all these things that you do in love are all done in vain.

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They're really not done for the benefit of anybody and certainly not to the glory of God. If God's word is not the thing that that sits over all of the actions of the church, the pastor's job is primarily going to be preaching and teaching his word.

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So whether that's from the pulpit, that's certainly the first place that comes from the pulpit on Sunday morning.

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But then there's Sunday night classes. There's Bible studies during the week. And then for me, I've been doing this podcast daily for the last five years or so.

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And that's continual teaching for my church. Members of my congregation listen to this. Even those soldiers that are deployed that are overseas, they listen to this, their wives listen to it, and then they talk about it together.

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Hey, did you listen to Gabe's devotional today? So give them something to talk about and be reading and going through the same books at the same time.

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And that way they're growing each other in their devotional disciplines as well.

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The more you allow your pastor to be able to focus on the teaching, the more benefit that's going to be for you and for the rest of your church.

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There has to be other people in the church that are stepping up to handle those physical roles.

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And typically that falls on the deacons. That's where it's supposed to be. Remember that in Acts chapter six, where you had the appointing of the first deacons, the reason why the elders said we need to we need to pick some men who can help with the distribution to the to the

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Hellenistic widows. The reason why they did that is because the elders didn't want to have to stop teaching.

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It's not for us to stop and wait tables. Our devotion is to the sharing of the gospel and the preaching of the word.

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Let there be other servants who may not be called to teach that can help with the distribution of these things, the caring for the members of the body that needed to be cared for.

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So you need to you need to make sure that there are people in your church who are designated for these respective roles and they are carrying those things out because your pastor can't do that without it being a major wear on him.

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And therefore, the church suffers from it as well. Part of my being hired at First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas, is that I am coming on to help take some of that pressure off of Dr.

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Buck, because he needs a guy that can help him with some of these other things that he by himself cannot do.

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He he can't attend to every single thing. He can't teach every single class. So he needs more teachers that the teaching continues in more direct categories, respective areas, discipleship, one of those things that I'm going to be handling when

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I get there. Raising up new teachers and things of that nature. And so because that's the need, that's what they hired for when it comes to some of these other physical tasks that need to be done.

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There needs to be more people to handle that so the pastor can focus on the teaching.

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You've probably heard this cliche many, many times, but it's like 20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the work.

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Right. So the church is like a twenty eighty sort of a thing. You may have that. I know it's difficult to get people motivated to do things.

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That happens a lot. But do what you can to make sure that your pastor has any and all freedom to focus on teaching.

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And if there's some area in your church, a need that is not being met, don't rush to blame the pastor for it.

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Hey, this thing is not being done. So that must be his fault. No, it's probably your fault. It's probably someone else in the church is not caring to that knee or tending to that need, caring for that matter.

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Is he preaching? Is he focusing on the teaching? Then let him do that. There are certainly places where a pastor needs to be a shepherd, counseling, building each other up, visiting those who are sick, hospital visits, things of that nature.

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Certainly a pastor needs to do all of those things, but he's still just one man. He can't do all of it. And you can still stretch him so thin that the teaching suffers and therefore the spiritual maturity of the church suffers from that as well.

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Remember that the appointing of pastors, according to Ephesians 4, 11 and 12, that God has appointed apostles and prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

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So the role of a pastor is to equip the saint to be able to do acts of ministry to others in the saint, others of the saints that we may all attain to maturity growing up together into the head who is

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Christ. The pastor is training you up for ministry. What sort of ministry work are you doing?

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And if you're thinking that it all must fall on him, that he's the guy that needs to take care of all of that, then that's going to be to the detriment of your entire church.

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Furthermore, and now let me say this to the pastors. Hey, pastor, you can't do everything.

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And your hesitation to delegate out and appoint some of these things to other people is going to wear you out.

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And furthermore, you're not fulfilling your role in equipping the saints for the work of ministry if you think that you have to do it all.

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This is how I believe a lot of pastors fall into burnout. I think that it's not really an either or, it's sometimes a both and.

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The pastor is not focusing on those things that he needs to focus on, mainly the preaching and the teaching, and therefore he's going to wear him out when he tries to do everything else plus teach.

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And then you have members of the congregation that are expecting too much of their pastors instead of letting him have the freedom to do the study that he needs to do, to write his sermons, to lead in the preaching and teaching, and maybe not just in your church, but even in other areas.

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I don't think that the role of a pastor should be limited to just his congregation. I think that's certainly where his focus should be because that's the body that has hired him, and he's mainly a shepherd over that flock.

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But as other churches ask of him to come and teach there or to go to a seminar or some sort of a class or something like that, that's great because that continues to be missions work that comes out of your church for the building up of the saints, the building up of others.

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Allow your pastor to be able to do things like that as well and take breaks to go to conferences to receive teaching from other pastors.

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He needs that time of refreshing also. These things are hugely beneficial to him and therefore to you.

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So that's what I wanted to pass on to you. That's something that I'm learning in this current season as I'm getting prepared for this move.

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Now I'm moving, so the stuff I'm going through right now is not typically what I've gone through in my 10 years as a pastor.

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Oh, something else that's also been a major, major distraction. And I would say this more than anything else that takes away from a focus on the preaching and teaching in the church is when the church is full of people who are in sin that are not repenting.

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And even as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5, a little bit of leaven will leaven the whole lump.

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So you just have one or two people that are in egregious sins and are not being disciplined. Then the whole church suffers from that.

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The preaching and the teaching even suffers because now the pastor and the elders have to focus on this sin issue, and that takes away from from the time that they need to be investing in teaching.

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Now, disciplinary matters are part of any church life, and so a church is going to have to learn how to handle those things.

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But the but still, if you are pursuing the passions of your flesh, you don't seem to understand just how much that's affecting your entire congregation and even your pastor.

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So repent, repent, desire holiness. If you're walking in holiness, that's not just for your benefit.

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You're certainly walking or growing in sanctification, becoming more Christlike, but it benefits the whole church.

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As we read in Romans chapter 12, verse three, for by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment and each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

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This is Pastor Appreciation Month. I always think that that, you know, certain months focused on certain things is kind of a silly deal.

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But hey, at least people are talking about it right now. How can we show appreciation to our pastors?

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So if there's any time that you would reflect upon these things and evaluate stuff that's going on in your church and how you can take pressure off your pastor so he can focus more on the teaching of sound doctrine, since that's like one of his first requirements,

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Titus one nine, he must hold hold fast to the trustworthy word as taught, giving instruction in sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it.

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That's that's his role as a shepherd over your church. So as you're focusing on how can I help my pastor do that more, this is a great time more than any during Pastor Appreciation Month.

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And you can probably encourage some other folks in your church to do the same. All right. So that was my opening spiel.

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That was what Becky and I talked about. And from that conversation, I wanted to pass that on to you, even though she's not sitting in studio with me here.

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Continue to pray for us as we have less than two weeks now before we are out of here.

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We're out of the state of Kansas and moving down to Texas. I've got one more sermon in Matthew that I'm preaching this coming

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Sunday. Then the next week, October 25th, is going to be my last sermon. And I'm closing preaching out of Second Timothy, Chapter four, which is even still in context of a recent

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Bible study that we went through as a church through Second Timothy. But I didn't get to finish it. I didn't get to close with Chapter four.

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So that's going to end up being my last sermon, the close of that study and also my last sermon to my flock that I've been a part of for the last 10 years.

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This next week, I'm going to be at the cruciform conference, which is in Indianapolis, October 23rd and 24th.

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You can still get registered. You can still be there. Maybe you've hesitated signing up because you wanted to see how it was the conference even going to happen because of coronavirus and stuff like that.

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Yes, we're still meeting. It's going to be safe for you. If you don't have any pre -existing conditions, you're a healthy young adult and you would like to come be a part of the conference, then please attend.

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I'm going to be speaking on Friday and it's just great speakers all Friday and Saturday.

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And you can find out more about the conference by going to facebook .com slash cruciform con, including where it is there in Indianapolis directions to the place, all the speakers that are going to be there, all that stuff.

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We hope to see you next week. Becky is going to be with me. So though she hasn't been on the podcast, she will she will be with me at the cruciform conference.

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All right, now let's get to some questions. If you want to submit questions to the program, send them to when we understand the text at gmail .com.

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I'm going to begin with something that we talked about last week, and that was concerning Christian liberty. And I mentioned that while I talked about these things as a result of the sermon that Jeff Durbin preached at the

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Fight Laugh Feast conference in Nashville. I believe it was in Nashville. And in that sermon, he used a swear word.

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And I critiqued not the sermon, because, as I said, the points that Durbin made in that sermon,

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I would fully agree with about woke ism coming into the church and rebuking the churches that have adopted critical race theory and intersectionality and some of those cultural

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Marxist worldviews and ideologies that have somehow weaseled their way into the church because the church has made itself vulnerable to those things, not holding fast to the head and instead entertaining all these worldly philosophies.

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So as a result of some of those things that I that I said about Christian liberty and some of the pastors that will flaunt their liberty by openly drinking or smoking or even using swear words,

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Julie sent me this email and she said, hello, Pastor, just a quick note of encouragement for your message on October 8th in regards to Christian liberty and cursing and drinking.

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We couldn't agree with you more. And our hearts break for those pastors who flaunt their liberty as their flock suffers, praying for their minds to be changed, to desire to be more holy.

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We are also praying for your move and all that comes with that. You are a blessing to us and so many.

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Thank you so much, Julie. I will say that I listened to James White on the dividing line this past week.

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It was when I was cleaning out my garage and and Dr. White addressed the sermon that Durbin preached because Dr.

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White is among the elders there at Apologia Church, which was founded by Jeff Durbin. And they sat down and talked about it as elders and they came to an agreement with one another.

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And I felt like what Dr. White shared with regards to those things was good. And I appreciate that that's the way the eldership works there at that church.

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That's the way the eldership worked with me as well at First Southern Baptist Church. I was not acting independently on my own.

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And if ever I stepped out of line, even saying something dumb online, my elders would sit down and talk with me about that.

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So Jeff seemed to be very receptive to instruction. And I think Dr. White is wise in some of those things.

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And hopefully we'll see some improvements there in that area. Now, Douglas Wilson's church and cross politic and things like that, they are not under the influence of Dr.

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White, and they also flaunt these Christian liberty things, drinking openly, swearing and stuff like that.

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And using coarse language, it's very heartbreaking. I wish that they would not. But don't let that be a model for you to behave and act that way.

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Again, as we read last week from Ephesians 429, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

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Now, I also got some comments from some people who were making fun of what it was that I said on the program last week and said to me, he's literally talking about Jeff Durbin.

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He's literally using the same words as in the Bible. No, he wasn't. One of those words that he used was not in the

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Bible. And secondly, you're not Ezekiel. So you don't get to go out and speak like Ezekiel spoke with the words that God specifically gave

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Ezekiel to say. Some have argued that because Paul said to the Philippians, all these things

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I count as dung in order that I may gain Christ. They'll say, see, that's the same word that Durbin used.

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No, it's not. It wasn't even used in the same context. Paul was talking about his own works.

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He was not rebuking somebody else with that word. But it's also not the same as the word that Durbin used to mean that same thing.

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The example that I gave last week is if Durbin was on Jimmy Kimmel's program and he used that word with Kimmel, it would get bleeped out.

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Even pagans don't allow the sharing of that word in certain contexts.

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And so our attempts to be provocative are not gaining any points with anybody. It's actually just giving them an excuse to say, see, you're just like us.

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You want to rebuke us for being foul -tongued. And look at you, you're foul -tongued just like we are.

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Who are you to say that we can't speak this way when you're talking this way? And we bring that criticism upon ourselves whenever that's the kind of language that's coming from the pulpit.

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There was an article that was written in response to what Durbin talked about, and it even addressed the substance of what he said in his sermon.

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But it was written by Michael Bird, who was a New Testament scholar out of Australia. And Bird said that he felt like Jeff Durbin sounded like Mark Driscoll with his language.

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And really, I don't think Durbin is anything like Driscoll. But that's the kind of criticism that you're going to heap upon yourself from critics when that's the way that you speak.

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When what comes out of the sermon is, well, he said a swear word in the sermon, and that's what people remember about it, then you've lost the point.

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You've lost the message that you meant to drive home with what it was that you are saying.

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So our intention is not to be provocative and incorporate all these mechanisms and cunning tactics to convey a message.

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We believe that the gospel has the power to change hearts. Romans 116,

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I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

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And the instruction that Paul gave to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2 25 is to correct opponents with gentleness.

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God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, not because you were provocative, but because the

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Holy Spirit of God regenerated the heart of a person to hear the message that was being spoken, that they may be convicted of their sin and turn from it and believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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The gospel doesn't need our help. We must be faithful to the word of God, teaching the full counsel of God, and God will be the one to change hearts as a result of what it was that we preached of his word.

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And again, not not flaunting our Christian liberty. I can say this, and it's not a sin. If it causes somebody else to fall into sin, as it says in 1

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Corinthians 8, then you've sinned also. Next comment comes from Anne. Oh, yeah, I wanted to read this just just because I don't know what this person is saying.

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So I'm passing this email on. I don't know, I guess, just as an example of some of the kooky emails that I get.

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Sometimes I don't even know what this is in relation to. Anne emailed me and said, tread lightly, my friend, as you say, you used to be a church person.

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Where have I ever said that? I even kind of wonder if Anne's emailing the right person here.

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She goes on, just as you stated, you should not say God said something when he did not. You should not speak against his anointed ones.

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I'm guessing this has something to do with the blog that I wrote earlier in the year talking about how those apostolic ministers, the name it and claim it crew, couldn't see

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COVID -19 coming. Nobody prophesied this. And so therefore, they've really exposed themselves as frauds.

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All these prophets that that had prophesied for 2020 that it was going to be a year of vision and that God was going to do all these things and like money was going to pour out for the church and all this kind of stuff.

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They're all frauds. They've totally exposed themselves as being cons. So I think this is in response to that, but I don't know because she never says so going on here.

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We all agree temptations are high when there is money involved in just about anything that is said.

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If you have proof, lock them up. OK, if it's just an opinion like that of Donald Trump, well, you couldn't be more wrong.

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He has done countless great things for this country. And just once I like to see the liberals news one time print the good that he has done.

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How can you choose to not see? Your blog is full of opinion and lies.

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It's fake news. OK, then give me an example of that, because she said here, if you have proof, lock them up.

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It's just an opinion like that of Donald Trump. Your blog is full of opinion and lies. It's fake news. Well, so is your email here.

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So give me an example of what it is that I've said that's wrong, because I don't even know what you're talking about.

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We need accountability laws for not speaking facts with three collaborating solid witnesses as evidence and not your opinion.

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Then you need to provide three examples. Also, three corroborating witnesses of as to what

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I said was false, because like I said, I don't even know what you're writing in response to. President Trump will correct that oversight.

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I am sure when he is elected again. Sorry that you had a bad experience in church. There are genuinely godly people that pray and hear

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God's voice and churches that see healing. This is a blatant liberal attack on Christians. I have just one question.

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Where's the proof? Anyway, that's I think I threw that in my emails today because I did that earlier this week.

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Maybe I don't even remember what I was thinking about when I included this. Maybe I was just like, here's here's an example of some of the some of the weird emails that I will get sometimes.

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This next one comes from Loretta, and this was in response to the video that I made about the

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Bible project. And we've talked about this several times. Somehow this even became the most watched video

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I've done. It's over 150 ,000 views now. Anyway, she replied to that video.

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I'm warning about the danger of the Bible project and how the guys behind it are actually false teachers.

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She says, Dear Pastor Gabe, I see so much talent, so much ease of following and understanding in this content referring to the

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Bible project from introductions of new Jesus followers to a virtual removing of the veil possibilities for so many in such an easy way of receiving information they might otherwise never take the time to distill.

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They, I guess referring to the Bible project, guys are sending God's light into the world. Is the

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Bible project really a false prophet or is God unveiling his wisdom at different levels between his people?

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The intention of the heart is the language of the Bible by which we will be judged. So we need to know.

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I don't agree with that. I don't really know what you mean by that. The intention of the heart is the language of the

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Bible. I do agree that the Bible goes right to the heart of the matter. Maybe that's what you're referring to, but the intention of the heart is the language of the

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Bible. God's word is the language of the Bible. Anyway, going on, just like the apostles,

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God's people must work together to build his church, and I see so much possibility here on both sides.

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I would I would think that means my side and the Bible project guys. So this disconnect really hurts.

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I would really rather see an allegiance, a joining of God's forces instead of social media breaking down like the denominations have done to the church.

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Unity is Jesus intent. You are uncovering Noah's nakedness.

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If you didn't go to him first and talk with him to correct him as laid out in Scripture, you might be in violation just as much as he is, which

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I do not believe is your intent. Most sin does not carry different weight. Sin is sin.

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And this could be an assault on one of God's beloved children, as there is a load of study and talent and time and effort and love that seems to have gone into this project.

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We all see things a little differently, and maybe Satan is playing both sides here. We need to look for logs,

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I think, and add grace just as God does for each of us daily. If you did reach out to him and he rejected communication, please state that in an acceptable manner so that we can decide if he is, in fact, a false prophet that should be avoided or just another imperfect human being like the rest of us doing the best job he can with a matrix subject and the talent with which

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God has blessed him. We are all being tried in the fire, refined as fine silver to become the mirror image as much as possible of Jesus.

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And the dross just keeps on coming to the surface. Thank you for your consideration,

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Loretta. Loretta, you say that unity is Jesus intent. Mark 1045 says, even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

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Luke 10 or sorry, Luke 1910 for the son of man came to seek and to save the lost.

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First, John three, eight, whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.

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The reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. And Jesus said to his disciples, do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.

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I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. This is Matthew 10 and 34 going on into verse 35, for I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter -in -law against her mother -in -law and a person's enemies will be those of his own household.

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Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

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Whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it.

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And whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. I am not causing disunity by pointing out the false teaching that comes from the

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Bible project guys, Tim Mackey and otherwise. They're the ones that are causing division. Not I.

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They are misrepresenting the cross of Christ. Jesus says, whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

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They don't even understand the cross. They misrepresent the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement.

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And the way they teach on it is heretical. Tim Mackey's teaching on hell is borderline heresy.

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It sounds like he's teaching universalism. He doesn't come outright and say that, but it sounds to me like he is saying everybody eventually goes to heaven for him to say, we're the ones that have created hell.

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That is false doctrine. That is a lie from the pit of hell. Be aware that what he is saying is a scourge to the church.

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And if anybody were to come into a biblically faithful Orthodox church and be teaching some of the things that Tim Mackey is saying, he would be disciplined and driven out of it.

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If he refuses to repent, that's on him. That is not on me for highlighting this false teaching.

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And by the way, Mackey's false teaching is public. And so my rebuke of that false teaching is public.

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And no, I don't have to show you where I've contacted these false teachers and therefore display it in front of everybody.

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So you can decide whether or not he's a false prophet. You look at the teaching. You look at the scripture is what he's saying in agreement with what the

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Bible says. Like I said earlier, one of the qualifications of a pastor, according to Titus 1, 9, is that he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may give instruction in sound doctrine and rebuke those who contradict it.

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Tim Mackey is not teaching soundly, and I'm rebuking him for contradicting the sound teaching.

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They know that the video is there. They know what it is that I have said. And I did so very peacefully and very respectfully.

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I didn't call anybody any names in the video. All I did was present what he taught in his own words.

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The quotes that you heard were directly from recordings from Tim Mackey. And then I showed you what the scripture said in response to that.

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If you see any division there, it's because of the false teacher. It is not because of a faithfulness to the soundness of the word of God.

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That's what brings unity. Christ brings unity. Our first and foremost effort here is not to be unified.

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Our utmost desire is for Christ to be proclaimed. And the Bible project misrepresents the

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Christ of the Bible. Incidentally, I happen to notice and I have said this to Loretta in an email that her email address has the letters

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LGBT in it. Now, for me to say what context those letters appear would be to give away her email address.

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And so I'm not going to do that. But it seems to me like Loretta herself has much that she needs to repent of.

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We go on next to this next email. This is from Red in Oklahoma.

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And let me preface this by saying some of the things that Red talks about in this email are particularly sensitive in subject matter, meaning for mature ears only.

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So I'm going to give you a moment here. If you've got young ears in the room, you may either want to pause this program and come back to it when you don't have young ears in the room or maybe want to preview this before your children hear it.

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So this is Red in Oklahoma. Dear Pastor Gabe, I'm sure you have seen this. And he links to the

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Christianity Today report about Ravi Zacharias and allegations of sexual misconduct that were conducted at two spas, which he co -owned.

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See, that right there was weird. I didn't know about that. And to hear that Ravi owned two spas, that enough was a red flag.

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I was like, why does a Christian teacher own a spa anyway going on? It's so explicit.

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I felt dirty even reading it. I felt like the article said more than it needed to. But at the same time,

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I don't know how else Christianity Today could have reported this information and made the impact that was needed.

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I've since thrown all my Ravi Zacharias books in the trash. And yeah, my friends, the

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Ravi Zacharias ministry is over in light of these things that have come out. Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, as I understand it, is currently doing their own independent investigation.

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But if they are honest, they will come to the same conclusion that Christianity Today found and World Magazine.

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World conducted their own investigation of this independent of Christianity Today and even cited sources that CT did not.

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And it is all laid out. The evidence all laid out shows that Ravi Zacharias is guilty of sexual immorality that was conducted at these spas.

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There's even a lot of things that happened there that we don't know, but looks way too suspicious in light of what we do know.

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So going on, Red says, without going into any of the explicit details, I was wondering if this news changes your mind about what is called the

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Billy Graham rule or sometimes the Mike Pence rule. It's clear that Ravi was spending a lot of time alone with other women under his employment.

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A couple of years ago, Ravi defended himself against allegations of sexual misconduct by saying,

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I have long made it my practice not to be alone with a woman other than Margie and our daughters,

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Margie, his wife, not in a car, a restaurant or anywhere else. In light of this story, does the

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Billy Graham rule still hold up to scrutiny? Thank you for your time. Well, Ravi wasn't following the

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Billy Graham rule just to cut to the chase here. So it's not like that rule is somehow invalid or unwise because of what

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Ravi did. He wasn't following it. He was alone with other women all the time and sometimes alone with women that didn't really even want to be alone with him based on some of the allegations that were made there.

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So so no, the the rule itself has not been compromised. Ravi compromised himself with his sexual misconduct.

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So again, in case you don't know, the Billy Graham rule, also the Mike Pence rule, is the idea that or it's a discipline that a man is not going to be alone with another woman who is not his wife.

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Now, the way that has been spun is to say that like men are somehow so not in control of themselves that they can't even be alone with another woman without wanting to do something that he shouldn't be doing or that that women are just vixens.

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And so whenever they're alone with a guy, they're going to try to tempt them somehow or something like that.

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That's the way that the rule has been spun. It's in effect because guys just can't control themselves.

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That's not the reason for it. It's to not even have the appearance of something inappropriate being done.

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So no one can say like if you as a guy were alone with a woman who is not your wife and somebody knows about that, they know that you were alone together.

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A rumor starts up that you guys have been kind of flirtatious with one another on the outside of your marriage, like you're being unfaithful to your spouse.

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Maybe there's not even any sex that's been involved, but somebody can say of you that you've been spending a lot of time with another woman who's not your wife.

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That looks really suspicious, right? And if you were disciplining yourself not to be alone with another woman, then you are above reproach.

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No one can make that accusation of you because you've never been alone with another woman who is not your wife or not your daughters.

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That's why the rule is such a valuable discipline. It doesn't have

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I won't say it doesn't have anything to do with protecting yourself from temptation. It certainly has to do with that also, but it's not like every time you're alone with somebody, you're automatically going to be tempted to do something with them.

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That's not the purpose of the rule. The purpose of the rule is that we are above reproach. Not anything can even be said about what happened to us in private.

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Among the qualifications of a pastor in First Timothy three, which by the way, somebody who's a part of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries or the

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Gospel Coalition or, you know, any other kind of entity which has certain evangelical figureheads that might go out and preach at conferences and whatever else they have to meet these qualifications to this is meant for a pastor or an elder of a church.

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But anybody who would be that kind of a leader in a Christian position must meet the qualifications we have in First Timothy three, one through seven.

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The saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, not just the office, but even the function of that office, he desires a noble task.

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Verse two. Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach. That's the very first thing that is said in the qualifications of a pastor.

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He must be above reproach. In other words, he must be above blame. You can't point to that guy and blame him of something of some sort of improper action or behavior because he is a man of good character and he shows his character in public.

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He does, as Christ says in Matthew chapter five, letting his light shine before men. He wears his righteousness as a breastplate so that no one can say anything shameful about him.

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He is above reproach. It goes on to say he is the husband of one wife.

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And you've probably heard it said the way that's literally translated is he is a one woman man.

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My friends, Ravi is disqualified based on those two things. He is not above reproach.

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And it turns out he was not a one woman man when he said, I have had this is a direct quote.

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I have long made it my practice not to be alone with a woman other than Margie and our daughters, not in a car, a restaurant or anywhere else.

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Unquote. That's a lie. We know that now to be a lie, because even if you wanted to doubt any of these things that were said about him in as far as his sexual immorality goes at this spa, even if you wanted to doubt those testimonies, it is still verified by eyewitness accounts that he was alone with women at that spa.

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So for him to say, I have never been alone with a woman. He was lying. And he's been lying about many, many other things.

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He's lied about his credentials at Oxford and in Cambridge. He lied about being a doctor. And then we have this sex scandal that has come out.

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His ministry is done and he's lost all credibility. I'm in agreement with red, throw his books away.

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And my friends, I've got five Ravi Zacharias books. They're all packed up now. They were packed up when this story broke, but they're going in the trash.

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It's heartbreaking. I loved Ravi Zacharias. I think when he passed away, I shared a story about when

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I went to go see him speak at Kansas State University. I know that he was beloved and endeared by so many people.

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But his life was a con. His ministry was a fraud. The Lord, in spite of him, used the things that he taught and said to bring people to Christ.

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I truly believe that. But that is not to give any credit to his ministry. He has brought a shame to it.

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And and unfortunately, is it has also brought reproach to the sharing of the gospel.

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There are going to be many other skeptics of the gospel. They're going to bring this up. What about Ravi Zacharias? What about Jerry Falwell Jr?

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These guys who had platforms as evangelical leaders and made a shipwreck of their faith.

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Consider these words from First Timothy 1, 18 through 20. This charge I entrust to you,

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Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience.

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By rejecting this, by rejecting the sound teaching of the faith and a good conscience, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are

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Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

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Just because Ravi Zacharias has died does not mean that we should not therefore speak of these things that he has done.

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If he were still alive, he would be under church discipline and we would be throwing his books out that he may learn not to blaspheme.

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May God have mercy on his soul. I don't know what things were going on in his life before he died.

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I pray that he was repentant of these things, that his heart had not been far from Christ.

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We worship a gracious God, praise God for that, but none of us should ever flirt with this danger and think, hey, if Ravi Zacharias was okay, then

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I can go with it too, because you will make a shipwreck of your faith and may stand before God on that day of judgment and hear of him.

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Depart from me, you worker of lawlessness. I never knew you. Remember what

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Jesus said about that day. Remember these words, my friends. May they cut you to the heart.

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Matthew 7 verses 21 through 23. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven.

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On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?

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And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

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And again, I pray for Ravi's soul. I would never, ever, ever wish upon anyone that they would be cast into hell.

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But if you do not turn from your sin and trust in Christ, those will be the words that you hear from him on that day of judgment.

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Don't look at things that these guys have done in their failings. Ravi and his sin,

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Jerry Falwell and his sin. Don't look at that stuff and go, well, see, I can do it and I can still get into heaven.

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Those guys are going to have to answer for what it is that they have done. You walk in holiness and faithfulness and righteousness.

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Turn away from these things. Have nothing to do with it. Colossians 3, 5 put to death what is earthly in you, sexual immorality.

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It's the first thing on that list. When Paul is talking about putting to death the passions of our flesh, do not walk in these things any longer.

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If the grace of Christ is upon you, walk in Christ and his righteousness.

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Do not let yourself be stained by the world. The instruction we have in James 1, 27.

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I'm saying this so emphatically because I'm begging of you. Do not walk in the paths of these men.

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They've made shipwreck of their faith, toss their books. They would no longer be allowed in your pulpit in life.

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Well, we're in Ravi Zacharias's case, Jerry Falwell Jr. Still alive, but even as they live, they would not be allowed to stand in your pulpit.

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So don't let their books, their teaching be in your church either. Let's pray at the conclusion of that.

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I have one other thing that I want to get to here, but this is just stirred my soul so that I think that we need to come to the

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Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, please give us strength in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Judge us faithful.

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Appoint us to your service. We all at some point have been blasphemers and we have been insolent opponents of God.

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As Paul has said of himself, we were this way too before we came to Christ. But if we have been forgiven of our sins, washed by the blood of the lamb, cleansed of all unrighteousness, then lead us to walk in righteousness.

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Let your mercy be upon us, God. The grace of our Lord overflowing for us that we may in Christ display his perfect patience as an example to those who are to believe in him for eternal life.

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Give wisdom to Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, the decisions that those persons have to make here in the coming future.

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I know that Ravi's family is filled with sorrow, but I pray that it is a grief that leads to repentance for them, for the family, that they may see the warning signs in front of them not to walk in this way, but to turn from it and desire holiness.

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And may that be the case for all of us. Cleanse us from unrighteousness. If there is any sinful way in us, convict us of that.

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May we turn from sin. May we stand in fear before God and desire your holiness, your righteousness imputed to us by faith in Jesus Christ, the righteous one to the king of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only

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God, the honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

47:15

All right, let's get to this last question here. This comes from Derek in Utah. He says, Dear Pastor Gabe, I loved your article.

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There are no pro -life evangelicals for Biden. Thank you for that. You can still read that article by going to PastorGabe .com.

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By the way, let me let me jump in here and mention this. So my blog is hosted now by the Majesties Men, and they have added a feature on the blog that I can upload an audio version of the blog.

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So you don't just have to read it anymore. You can hear me read it to you. If you go to the blog, you click on any blog, it'll it'll have the audio right there at the top.

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Actually, I've only done this for one article so far, but I plan on doing this for the rest as well.

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So any future articles that come up, you will have both the option of reading it or of listening to it.

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If you're like me and you read your articles when you're in bed and you don't want to wake up your spouse next to you, then you don't want to play the audio feature.

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But if you're cooking or something like that, doing some other kind of chore and you can't read and do that at the same time, then just hit the play button.

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I'll read the article for you. All right. So going on here, he says, I wish you had said something, though, about how even if we took abortion off the table, a

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Christian still could not in good conscience vote for Joe Biden. Their endorsement of Biden is hypocrisy of the highest order talking about these pro life evangelicals.

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Their endorsement of Biden is is hypocrisy. The very things evangelicals for Biden say they hate about Donald Trump, namely his character and lack of integrity.

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How is Joe Biden not just as bad, if not worse? He is a lying, foul mouthed, sexual deviant and assaulter of women.

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Well said, Derek. As this week has demonstrated, Derek goes on to say the very thing the

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Democrats impeached Trump over his dealings with the Ukraine. It turns out

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Biden is guilty of. He also wants to make it legal to murder or mutilate your children.

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Let's not forget that he is for children changing genders, even if. And by the way,

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I received this email before the town hall last night. I'll get to that here in just a moment.

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But anyway, Derek goes on to say even if you ignored his ethics on life in the womb, that point alone is enough to disqualify anyone from any office, even the

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Interagency Committee for the Management of Noxious and Exotic Weeds, which is an actual government office, by the way.

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Well, I learned something new today that there is an Interagency Committee for the

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Management of Noxious and Exotic Weeds. Look that one up, Derek says.

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Add to this Biden's incredibly racist past assault on women and creepy behavior with children.

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He's a socialist and has made direct threats to religious freedom, free speech and freedom of the press.

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How could so many otherwise thinking Christians be duped into thinking that Biden is actually better than Trump?

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I believe that these are issues that need to be highlighted, but I don't see many Christian bloggers saying them.

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Do you have any plans on a future article about this or maybe a part two of your previous article? No, I don't have plans for that.

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See, if I had highlighted all of that, which you just did, Derek, and by the way, now it's out there in the open because I've read it here on the podcast.

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If I did write an article on all of that, well, the article would have gone from 1400 words to like 2400 words.

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And I was trying to keep it simple and only address the fact that these evangelicals were calling themselves pro -life evangelicals for Biden.

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The point that I was making is you can't be a pro -life evangelical for Biden. You are compromising on your pro -life ethics if you're voting for somebody like Joe Biden.

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That issue alone is enough to disqualify him. No Christian should be voting for anybody who is for the death of children, especially by means of abortion, which kills over 3000 unborn children per day in the

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US, a million per year, over 65 million since Roe v.

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Wade was passed in 1973. That alone is enough. No Christian should ever vote for any kind of candidate.

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But on top of that, Joe Biden is for the transgender transformation of of children.

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Listen to this answer that he gave last night at the town hall that was aired on ABC and hosted by George Stephanopoulos.

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Listen to this. I'm the proud mom of two girls, eight and ten.

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My youngest daughter is transgender. The Trump administration has attacked the rights of transgender people, banning them from military service, weakening non -discrimination protections, and even removing the word transgender from some government websites.

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How will you as president reverse this dangerous and discriminatory agenda and ensure that the lives and rights of LGBTQ people are protected under U .S.

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law? I will flat out just change the law, eliminate those executive orders, number one.

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You may recall, I'm the guy who said I was raised by a man who I remember

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I was being dropped off. My dad was a high school educated, well -read man who was a really decent guy.

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And I was being dropped off to get an application in the center of our city, Wilmington, Delaware, the corporate capital of the world at the time.

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And these two men, I'm getting out to get an application to be a lifeguard in the African -American community because it was a big swimming pool complex.

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And and these two men, well -dressed, leaned up and hugged one another and kissed one another. I'm getting out of the car at the light and I turned to my dad.

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My dad looked at me, said, Joey, it's simple. They love each other. Yeah, let me just jump in here. This is kind of beside the point, but so is this story.

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This story he's telling here did not happen. In the words of Joe Biden, it's a bunch of malarkey. Listen to all the talking points he's fitting in there.

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I was going to go be a lifeguard in an African -American community. And there were two gay men who were kissing on each other.

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And my dad raised me to believe they just love each other. No, this is a lie.

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Never happened. Joe Biden's views on LGBTQ issues changed just like every other

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Democrat in order to gain votes from LGBTQ persons. He was not raised this way.

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The idea that an eight -year -old child or a 10 -year -old child decides, you know, I decided

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I want to be transgender. That's what I think I'd like to be. They make my life a lot easier. There should be zero discrimination.

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And what's happening is too many transgender women of color are being murdered.

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They're being murdered. I mean, I think it's up to now 17. Don't hold me to that number.

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But it's it's it's higher now. And that's just this year. And so I promise you there is no reason to suggest that there should be any right denied your daughter or daughters, whichever one or two, one, one, your daughter, that your other daughter has a right to be and do none, zero.

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And by the way, my son, Beau, passed away was the attorney general of the state of Delaware. He was the guy who got the first transgender law passed in the state of Delaware.

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And because of a young man who became a woman who worked for him in the attorney general's office.

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Now, what's funny at the close of that answer there is the statement he made about the man who became a woman.

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The LGBTQ movement would call that offensive because that's not a man who became a woman.

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That's just a woman, according to them. Even when you're for it, you still can't get the talking points right.

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That's just how confusing all of this is. But but what should appal us there is that he told this mother that eight and 10 year have the the knowledge and the wisdom to be able to call themselves something other than they are.

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In this case, I guess it would be her sons who decided to become daughters. And now she's referring to them as daughters.

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And from the highest office in the land, the president of the United States, he is saying that we should embrace this.

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And we should be telling second and third graders that even if your body says you're a boy, you can be a girl if you feel otherwise.

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This is heresy that was proclaimed at that town hall last night in opposition to what

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God had declared from the beginning in Genesis 127. So God created man in his own image.

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In the image of God, he created him male and female. He created them.

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So more than being for the murder of children in the womb, Joe Biden is also for the mutilation of children outside the womb who can decide that they want to be another gender if they want to be.

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The church should repudiate this. By no means should there ever be some sort of collective body of Christians saying we're

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Christians for Joe Biden, for you would be voting a heretic who hates what

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God has created into the highest office of the land. And as Derek said here that he's not even fit to be on the interagency committee for the management of noxious and exotic weeds.

56:53

Great find. I don't know how you found that. I believe, as Al Moller does, that when it comes to this election, we're not voting

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Donald Trump versus Joe Biden. We're voting Republican versus Democrat. Do you agree with the Republican Party platform or the

57:07

Democrat Party platform? We're talking about a collision of worldviews here. You don't have to like Donald Trump to vote for Donald Trump to prevent the hair, the anti -God heresy that Biden and Kamala Harris represent.

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Harris heresy. Hmm. I think we're onto something there. Let's conclude with prayer. Heavenly Father, have mercy on us.

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Please grant repentance to this nation. May your word be proclaimed from the pulpits in America as it is supposed to be proclaimed, not delving into all of this, this worldly philosophy that is attempting to overtake the church.

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But we come back to the authority of the word of God and made that prevail over your people.

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And we proclaim it from every pulpit, every street that Jesus Christ is

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Lord. He is the judge of all. Turn from your sin and believe the gospel. Give us the boldness to proclaim this in Jesus name.